The Catskill Chronicle

James R. Farrell holds forth on the meaning of the law in the DA’s Office library.

Story and photos by Ted Waddell

MONTICELLO – “Know your facts, know them all, leave nothing to chance and never be surprised,” said James R. Farrell, the newly elected Sullivan County District Attorney a couple of weeks before his swearing in ceremony.

Back 14-years ago when he came on board at the local DA’s office as one of the assistant district attorney’s (ADA) serving under Stephen F. Lungen, he said his former boss would “throw you out of the office if you didn’t know your facts.”

“Steve is very much like my father in terms of work ethics, he’s always here…he’s had an enormous impact on me in the courtroom, I’ve learned quite a bit from him,” said Farrell.

“I’ve learned how to try cases and how to make sure the victims get justice.”

Farrell said that one of the tricks of the trade he picked up from Lungen was that in today’s visual world in which “people no longer get their information from newspapers, they get it from television and the internet,” prosecutors need to keep up with the times and present their cases visually.

“It’s the art of persuasion, you have to present [your case] in a way the jury can comprehend it [and] you have to make it interesting so they can follow it, [and] if you don’t you lose them.”

“When you go into the courtroom, you have to convince twelve people that this particular person committed the crime beyond a reasonable doubt,” he added.

Another thing Farrell and the other ADA’s learned from Lungen, was that after a crime occurs, start preparing your case by going to go to the scene, “learning the facts firsthand…when it’s fresh.”

As he moved up through the ranks to the post of Chief ADA, Farrell perfected the prosecutorial art for the people in the courtroom by trying several notable cases.

His first arson trial was the case against Robert Comfort who was charged with setting a blaze at a Callicoon apartment house on Christmas Eve 1999, and alleged involvement with previous fires in Cochecton and North Branch.

Comfort was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison. “I went to the fire scene with the fire investigators,” said Farrell, who shortly thereafter joined a local volunteer fire department as a firefighter.

“The volunteer fire departments really give a lot to the community, they’re on call 24/7.”

Farrell tried a couple of persistent felony offenders including the 1997 case against Kenneth Bingham who was indicted for possession of a stolen handgun and in 2001, the Earl Coleman drug sale case. Bingham allegedly fled from South Carolina after stealing an arsenal of weapons, and when stopped by the NYSP, had the handgun on him and was accompanied by a 15-year kid.

“He was a bad guy,” said Farrell, adding Bingham, who was sentenced to 15 to life, was previously convicted of drug possession, and escaping from a prison van after setting fire to the vehicle.

As a ‘three strikes and your’re out ‘ felon, Coleman was rounded up along with 40-50 other criminal defendants as part of the DA’s mobile enforcement team (MET) drug sting in Liberty.

With a history of drug sales and possession of weapons, Coleman was sentenced to life in an iron bar hotel.

According to Farrell his toughest case to date was against Howard “Sonny’ Greene, a retired corrections officer who was accused of sexually abusing and raping his eight-year old daughter.

“It was an extremely difficult case as the teenager had to go through it (the testimony) again [on retrial]…this was a girl who had been significantly damaged.”

“When you rape a child, you take away part of their soul, you kill that child,” added Farrell. “Greene got 65 ½ years in the retrial…he’ll die in prison where he rightfully belongs so he can’t harm another child, ever, ever again.”

As the county’s new DA, Farrell will follow in the footsteps of Lungen, taking on the most difficult cases, including murder.

During the county’s current budget crisis, county manager David P. Fanslau proposed cutting the chief ADA position and eliminating one of the investigator slots, in a move Farrell said would have put the DA’s Office back to 1997 staffing-wise.

“We can’t afford to roll back public safety…we want to go forward, not backwards,” he said.

In the wake of some last minute negotiations, the budget axe was lifted from the investigator’s neck, and while the Chief ADA slot was saved, it will be funded at a reduced pay level.

Farrell, who ran for DA under the banner “Courtroom Tested, DA Approved,” easily defeated challenger local attorney-at-law Glenn Kroll on November 3, 2009.

“One of the things I want to look at is public corruption, [and] gang activity,” he said.

Farrell graduated from Newburgh Free Academy (NFA) in 1986, and furthered his education at Dutchess County Community College and SUNY Binghamton (he earned a degree in economics), later graduating from Albany Law School in 1993, where he studied Constitutional law and criminal law procedure.

His father was a corrections office who moved up to deputy superintendent at Wallkill, until retiring after 39 ½ years working his way up through Sing Sing, Green Haven, Fishkill and Yonkers.

“He was my role model, a hard working man who went to work every day. He taught me a good work ethic,” said Farrell.

The county’s new DA started out with a private law firm in Vermont, and on October 2, 1995 accepted a position as an ADA in the Sullivan County’s DA’s Office.

Farrell’s take on the law?

“It regulates how we interact with each other,” he said. “Our criminal law comes from the Ten Commandments…’thou shall not murder, thou shall not steal’…it’s pretty basic.”

“It gets justice for victims of crimes…the DA’s office speaks for the people, and when the law has been violated it’s a transgression against everybody, not just a transgression against the person who has been violated but against society as a whole.”

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